The Diary
by Cyberwolf 10
Summary: Jeremy is given his cousin's diary to remember her by. Join him as he reads about her life on Elm St. Could be a prelude to Freddy Vs Jason.


The Diary

A Nightmare on Elm Street short story

By Cyberwolf10

Note from Cyberwolf10: this work is entirely fiction.

My cousin is dead. I can't believe that my cousin is dead. She was just a couple of months younger than I am. I feel really bad that over the years, Rebecca and I have lost touch. At one time we were like siblings, the best and closest of friends. We even used to pretend that we were married when we were kids. All that's gone now.

Uncle Steve and Aunt Donna sent me a few of her things to remember her by. A couple of photographs from when our families went camping back in the summer of '94, back when I had just turned 10 and she was still 9. That was a great holiday, our families took us camping to Lake Erie.

Rebecca and her family had just moved away to a place called Springwood and so our dads thought it was a good idea to get together for the holidays. I remember that Rebecca cried when she saw me, they were tears of joy. She gave me a huge kiss on the cheek, which I (being a young boy), immediately rubbed away.

While our families set up the tents, she took me a little ways into the forest. We caught up on old times, me explaining what all of our friends were up to back in Milwaukee and her telling me of all her new friends in Springwood. She explained that Springwood didn't have a lot of children but she had made friends with a girl named Alexia and a boy named Trent. I remember how much she cried on the phone to me a couple of years later telling me that Trent had died in his sleep.

As our camping trip drew to a close, Rebecca told me that she loved me and that she still wanted to marry me when we grew up, she even kissed me on the lips then and was my first real kiss. I never told anybody, I knew that, as cousins, it would be seen as weird if we got together but in my own way I was touched and even kissed her back. But I was young then; as I grew up I began to become really interested in girls and went out with a girl named Stacy for a while. I wonder what happened to her?

Aunt Donna also sent me Rebecca's diary. I've looked at the cover over and over but hadn't worked up the courage to read it until recently. I felt that even though she was gone that it would still be an invasion of her privacy. Aunt Donna had asked me to read it to see if there were any clues as to why Rebecca killed herself. In the end curiosity got the better of me and I opened the thick red book and read the first page.

"Rebecca's diary: hands off" she must have written that when she was younger. "This diary belongs to Rebecca Morris of 1410 Elm Street, Springwood. If found, please return." I smiled as I read the first entry…

"13th June 2000: Mom just bought me this diary for my 12th birthday. I didn't know what to write so I'll just put in my thoughts and feelings. I am happy that it's my birthday but sad at the same time. This year will be the second year since Trent's death back in '98. I really wish he were here because I really miss him. Speaking of people I miss, I also wish my cousin, Jeremy were here. Oh well, at least Alexia is still around.

"16th June 2000: It's terrible, only the other day I was thinking about Trent and now again I am forced to remember about his death. A couple of blocks from my house, a local paper said, two kids were camping in their back garden and died in their sleep just like Trent did. Both of their hearts just stopped. No one knows why. Why would a couple of kids' hearts just stop? Why did Trent's do the same? Trent was perfectly healthy and I'm willing to bet that those kids were as well.

"20th June 2000: Alexia agrees with me that the deaths are too similar to be ignored. At first I thought it was my childish imagination acting up but Alexia is two years older than I am and her mother is a doctor. She suggested that maybe it was some sort of virus that had resurfaced after a couple of years of being dormant. I don't know what to think. Kids in Springwood don't seem to last long. They either die in their sleep or move away when they hear that someone has. It's freaky; I'm glad Alexia is here.

"2nd July 2000: I can't believe that there is a haunted house in my town, in my street no less. 1428 Elm, a burned down house that supposedly belonged to an infamous child killer in the '80's; they say that if you spend the night that you can hear the voices of his victims. Alexia wants me to spend the night there with her, but mom won't even let me have a sleepover at her house yet. She says I'm too young.

"20th July 2000: Springwood is so boring. Because there are no kids here, there are no playgrounds or youth clubs either. Alexia and I have to make do playing around in the old industrial buildings just East of my house. Alexia taunted me today, saying that one of the buildings there is also haunted and that if I was brave enough to go there then why not 1428 Elm? I explained to her that my mother thinks I am too young to stay out overnight and she suggests that I just sneak out. Alexia is so cool; she dresses all in black and is already wearing makeup. She is so pretty and I'm so plain, I so jealous of her breasts; I can't wait for my flat body to catch up. She makes me feel young just by looking as she does. Tonight I will try to sneak out.

"21st July 2000: I'm never going back to that house again! All the stories are true! There are ghosts of children and I never want to hear that song ever again. The night started off so well, I had gone to sleep at about 9:30 and set the alarm on my cell phone to go off at 12:30. My parents would be in bed by then. I had switched my phone to vibrate so that the alarm would make the phone buzz just loudly enough to wake me but not mom and dad. I was groggy as hell when the alarm went off but knew I had to get dressed and meet Alexia at the haunted house in ten minutes, which I did. I crept downstairs and went out the backdoor, meeting Alexia at number 1428. Alexia looked like a ninja or something dressed entirely in black and I felt like such a criminal. The front door of the huge house was boarded up but Alexia told me of a broken window 'round back. We got in through the window to find the most disgusting house that I'd ever seen. The interior of the house was all burnt and black and there was moldy slime on the walls. Broken furniture was scattered about the place without care. We held each other's hands as we nervously crept into the dining room. Cobwebs covered an old wooden table that had a thousand scratch marks on it. Some were just that- scratches, but others were little messages from other kids that had been in here. I remember one in particular that read 'Nancy was here, not for long. She fucked with Freddy and now she's gone.' it scared me. We skulked downstairs and found an old dingy boiler room with rusty pipes and more moldy slime on the walls. I thought I saw something shine on the wall and so got an old cloth and wiped away some of the slime. It came off thickly and revealed a collage of pictures and newspaper clippings. The latest one was dated from 1982 and the headline read "Slasher freed on technicality", I looked through the clippings and pictures with interest. Alexia was getting bored and wanted some action, she went off to explore the rest of the boiler room. The earliest of the newspaper clippings went all the way back to the 70's and read "Two dead in knife attack". Another read, "Fred Krueger dubbed 'Springwood Slasher' by police". I was freaked out. Alexia called me over to show me what she had found. She had seen an old doll in the furnace and reached in to get a better look when she had cut herself on something. She reached in and pulled out a weird looking glove. It was made out of a gardening glove with kitchen knives welded to it. It looked scary. Alexia dared me to try it on but I was too chicken and so she put the glove on. She flexed her fingers a few times and turned away from me then she spoke in a dirty old voice that sounded like a sex pervert. "How sweet, fresh meat!" Alexia turned her head to look back over her shoulder and her eyes pierced through me. They were not her eyes! She shuddered and let the glove fall to the floor and that's when we heard the singing. "One, two, Freddy's coming for you. Three, four, better lock your door. Five, six, grab your crucifix. Seven, eight, better stay up late. Nine, ten, never sleep again." It sounded like a jump rope song that children might sing. Whatever it was it scared the hell out of Alexia and me. We ran like hell. I got home at about 2:30 and tried to sleep but all I could dream about was that house. Eventually I thought of something good to dream about and I fell asleep until morning.

"2nd August 2000: For the nearly the past two weeks now, I've dreamt about that house. In one dream I was playing hopscotch outside that house, (which I haven't done in years), and as I hopped from one square to another, the previous squares would fall away into a fiery inferno beneath the street. All the while ghostly apparitions of children dressed in white would play jump rope and sing that awful song.

"20th August 2000: Alexia was found dead last night. She had gone in her sleep like all the others. I don't know what is going on but I asked mom and dad about moving away; they fed me some line about jobs and schools and bullshit but I know it has something to do with that house. Tonight I will go back. I have to go back.

"21st August 2000: I was in and out of that house in twenty minutes. I didn't want to spend any longer that I had to in there. I had gathered up all the photographs and newspaper clippings and even found a diary that used to belong to one of the house's residences, Jesse Walsh. The newspaper clippings told of a dirty old man named Fred Krueger who molested and murdered the kids of Springwood before the cops finally busted him in '82. But Krueger's arresting officer neglected to read him his rights and he was freed on a technicality. Later that night, the parents of Springwood tracked Krueger down to his hideout, one of the buildings in the industrial estate that Alexia and I played in! A chill went up my back when I found that out. The parents burnt Krueger to death and that's all the newspapers had to say. I turned to Jesse's journal, he wrote that Krueger somehow escaped death by hiding his essence in the realm of dreams. Krueger would come into a person's dreams and turn them into a nightmare. The fear someone would feel would empower 'Freddy' as Jesse called him, to such a point that he could shatter the barrier between the dream world and the real world so that if he killed you in a dream, you would die in real life. At first, Freddy seemed to be killing the kids of those who burned him alive. An idea occurs to me, what if Freddy had gotten to all those kids who died in their sleep? I am more afraid than ever."

I couldn't believe what I was reading. These were the words of my cousin, as she had written them and yet they also seemed to be the writings of a madwoman. The next couple of months detailed a few more unusual deaths in Springwood as children moved to the province and died soon after. She seemed to believe that this Freddy Krueger character was killing the kids of Springwood from beyond the grave. The diary became a detailed account of her dreams; they ranged from the norm, i.e. dreams about flying, to the downright bizarre. There was one dream in particular that fascinated me.

"30th September 2001: Last night was the weirdest dream I ever had. I dreamt that I was Daphne from Scooby Doo. My cousin, Jeremy, was Fred, Alexia was Velma and Trent was Shaggy. We wandered around in the Mystery Machine solving crimes involving so-called ghosts. Anyway, we where called up by the kids of Springwood to investigate the rumors about Freddy Krueger. We got to the old Krueger home to find it a twisted, scarier version of its real-life counterpart. The walls, instead of being covered in mold and slime were covered in goopy blood and everywhere we looked there were photographs of people I'd never met. They had names attached to the frames and dates, 'Jinkies' announced Alexia, 'A clue'. I read through them to see if there were any names that I recognized and stopped on a photo of a young woman with a gray streak through her hair. The name attached said Nancy Thomson, died 1987. I wondered if that was the same Nancy as from the engravings on the table. Another picture was of a young man, not much older than I am now. The name read Jesse Walsh, died 1986. I was horrified; this was the boy whose diary I found in the real-life Krueger house. I had no idea that Freddy had gotten to him. The last entry in his diary said that he and his girlfriend and forced Freddy out of his body and destroyed him. Freddy had been controlling Jesse's body in order to kill kids in the real world. Was there nothing that could stop this guy? The last of the pictures was of Alexia Drake, died 2000. I turned to Alexia and she just smiled. Jeremy announced that we should split up to look for more clues. 'Velma and Shaggy, you guys explore upstairs.' 'Aw man, can't we, like, explore the fridge instead?' 'Daphne and I will explore downstairs.' Jeremy and I went down to the basement where we found that someone had lit the furnace. It wasn't the small little boiler that it had been in real-life but a metal monstrosity with a gaping mouth that belched fire. I heard a noise that frightened me, the sound of rusty metal scraping across metal. The sound went through me. I thought I saw someone or something in the shadows and I turned to run away and that's when I bumped into the man himself, Freddy Krueger. I had read about him before but none of the descriptions in Jesse's journal did him justice. His skin was terribly burnt and covered in scar tissue. His face was frightening, his eyes seemed to burn with hatred and his dirty, rotten teeth had become sharp points. He wore a dirty red and dark green sweater and the razor-fingered glove that Alexia had found in the real house. He bowed and tipped his hat to me and then spoke in the same dirty old voice that Alexia did when we found the glove. 'Welcome to my nightmare,' he said. He raised his right hand and was about to bring it down in a killing blow when I woke up screaming. I had wet the bed with terror. I never want to dream of him again."

I studied the dream over and over and consulted various dream dictionaries to find out if there were any hidden meanings to the dream. I could find none. I skipped forward a couple of entries to see how far this Freddy thing had affected her.

"13th January 2002: I must be the last kid in Springwood. I'm so afraid that I'm next to die. I've thought about taking my own life just so he doesn't get the satisfaction of my death. For some reason, he hasn't killed me already. I sleep for three hours at a time. A book I read about dreams told me that people couldn't have nightmare in the first three hours of sleep. I stay awake on a combination of caffeine pills and cigarettes.

There are no mentions of Freddy Krueger then until November of that year.

"25th November 2002: He must be gone. I think I've outlasted him. It's nearly been a year now and I haven't had a nightmare. My bedroom is littered with dream-catchers and protective symbols from all kinds of religions. But at last, I think I'm safe. There are lots of kids in Springwood now and nobody's died in their sleep. Maybe Freddy had been forgotten, it should stay that way.

"10th March 2003: So far I have been lucky. My methods of suppressing my dreams have worked. Now I have found a healthier solution, there are these pills that I order off the net, Hypnocil. They're designed to suppress dreams so that troubled sleepers can get a good night's sleep. They work just fine although the label says that too many can be dangerous and on an online chat-room, Dreamer21 told me about these guys up in Weston Hills fell into a coma after taking too much. I'll not be that stupid. I've come too far in this fight to die in a coma. Anyway, this June I'll be 18 and I plan on getting the hell out of this town then.

"12th March 2003: The worst has happened, someone was found dead in their sleep last night. Freddy's back and I fear that I'm next. I can't wait till I'm 18, I might not even see that birthday; I have to get out of town tonight. I'll do what it takes but I have to leave this town. I'll take dad's car and leave a note."

Folded in on that page was the note. Aunt Donna must've included it or else Rebecca wrote it and never used it. I read it with interest.

"Dear Mom & Dad, I've tried telling you about Freddy, the monster from my nightmares, but you wouldn't listen. I've been suppressing my dreams for a while now but I can't do that forever…I'll go mad. I have to be free to dream and I can't do that with Freddy lurking in the shadows. For some reason, his hunting ground is limited to the Springwood area and so I am leaving town tonight. I'm taking the car and I'm going to stay with Jeremy in Milwaukee. I hope you can forgive me. Love, Rebecca."

I wonder why she didn't go through with it? I read the diary to see if the answers are there.

"13th March 2003: He won't let me leave. He is powerful now, more powerful than I've ever seen him. Kids are dropping like flies just like they did in the '80's when he was killing the children of those who killed him. I took the car, just as I had planned and headed straight for city's limits. Freddy is so powerful now that he can pierce the barrier between dreams and reality at any time. I know it was him who made me crash the car into the tree. I just lost control when I thought I saw him in the center of the road. I tried walking but every time I crossed the city's limit the whole world did a turnaround on me and I found myself walking back into the town. I'm back at home now. Awaiting my fate.

That was the last entry. I just don't buy into all this Freddy bullshit. It sounds like the plot of a horror movie or something. Tomorrow I have to go to Springwood for Rebecca's funeral, I wonder if I'll dream about Freddy Krueger, the dream demon with the razor gloved hand.

THE END?


End file.
